THE GOVERNMENT HAS started sending begging letters to landlords who have commenced eviction proceedings, telling them new rental rules that come into effect in March will not affect them if they continue with their existing tenants.

In lengthy emails and letters from the Department of Housing – seen by The Journal – landlords are “encouraged to maintain all current tenancies” ahead of the March changes.

“There is no obligation to end any of your current tenancies before March 2026,” the department said in the email.

Figures from the Residential Tenancies Board – the private rental regulator – last week showed that there were 5,405 eviction notices issued in the third quarter of this year.

This was a 35% increase on the same period last year.

The Department of Housing has contacted landlords who have taken the first key step of evicting a tenant by lodging a Notice of Termination for a current tenancy with the rental regulator Residential Tenancies Board (RTB).

The government is introducing significant changes on 1 March next year, which will see any newly registered tenancies created after that date required to have a rolling six-year contract between the renter and the landlord.

At the end of the six-year tenancy, the rent can be reset and the property put back on the market. This means that the first series of rent resets will take place in 2032.

Under the rules, there will also be a nationwide rent cap, preventing landlords from raising the rent by more than 2% each year. New build apartments will be exempt from this cap.

‘Begging’

One landlord who received the department’s email told The Journal he viewed it as a “begging notification” from the Department of Housing. It came after he lodged a notice to quit with the RTB for his tenants, asking him to reconsider.

The man said he and his wife had bought two properties in the early 2000s as part of a pension plan, and are now intending to move a family member into one of the homes.

In response to The Journal, a spokesperson for the department said it was issuing the emails due to confusion from landlords.

The spokesperson said the department had received a “number of queries from landlords” regarding the rental reforms, and has taken the opportunity to “clarify that the upcoming changes to rules for ending a tenancy will only apply to new tenancies created from 1 March 2026″.

“We are committed to ensuring that landlords are fully informed so they can make decisions based on accurate information,” the spokesperson said.

March changes

During the six-year period for any new tenancies created from March, landlords will only be able to end the tenancy in specific situations.

This includes where the tenant is not meeting their obligations such as around payments, or if the property no longer suits the tenant’s needs.

Landlords will also be allowed to hike rents in instances where tenants leave homes voluntarily, but not if they are evicted.

No fault evictions have been banned for landlords who own four or more properties.

Smaller landlords – who are classed as holding three or fewer tenancies – can still evict tenants in certain circumstances, such as financial hardship or if they have an immediate family member ready to move into the property.

Landlords warn on evictions

There have been questions raised in recent weeks by the Irish Property Owners’ Association as to whether there will be a surge in evictions ahead of the March deadline.

While data released by the RTB last week showed a 35% increase in notices to quit compared to the same period last year, this has been queried by some experts.

At the Oireachtas Committee on Housing this week, UCD housing policy researcher and lecturer Michael Byrne cautioned about claims there has been a major increase in landlords fleeing the market.

Byrne argued that notices to quit for the third quarter last year were “particularly low” relatively speaking, and that last week’s figures amount to a 20% increase in notices to quit when set against a four-year timeframe.

He added that a share of the total number of tenancies – which is recorded as 240,751 – who have received notices to quit represented 0.4% of the overall market.